AfICTA's 5-man delegation led by its Founder, Former Chair, and Chair of the Advisory Council, Dr. Jimson Olufuye, organized a presentation ceremony of The Africa ICT Personality Award 2022 to the outgoing Minister of Communications and Digital Economy of Nigeria, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim (Pantami) on Wednesday, 24th May 2023 in Abuja Nigeria. The aforementioned delegation included Mr. Timilehin Ambali, Board Member and COO Dotengee Ent.; Amb. Segun Olugbile, CEO Araba Technologies; Mr. Ife Olufuye and two AfICTA - Africa ICT Alliance Secretariat staff.

The Honorable Minister emerged as the winner of the annual prestigious award alongside his Mauritius counterpart, Hon. Darsanand Balgobin, through a nomination and election process that was conducted by AfICTA's Nominating Committee. The award was presented to the Honorable Minister in recognition of his sterling contribution to the ICT-enabled growth and development in Africa and for engendering more than 18% ICT contribution to Nigeria's GDP in 2022 and 40% overall ICT value chain contribution to the Nigerian economy.

While responding to the award presentation, the Honorable Minister heartily appreciated AfICTA leadership and the delegation for the recognition and counted it a great honour to have received the special award. He hence dedicated the award to all that supported his ministerial journey. AfICTA Chairman also felicitated with the Honorable Minister, he appreciated his input to the digital economy in Nigeria and Africa at large and further encouraged that more effort be channeled into positively projecting Africa to the world.

Few Pictures...

L-R: Segun Omolosho (AfICTA Secretary); Mr. Timilehin Ambali (COO DotEngee Ent. & AfICTA Board); Dr. Jimson Olufuye, AfICTA Founder, Former Chair & Chair of the Advisory Council; Amb. Segun Olugbile, CEO Araba Technologies; Kayode Oyeyemi (AfICTA Secretary); Ife Olufuye, System Engineer, Kontemporary Konsulting.

Join us for the 11th Quarterly Webinar of AfICTA, themed "Cybersecurity in West Africa: Exploring the UNECA Insight", scheduled to hold on Wednesday 26th April, 2023 by 10:00am UTC (11:am Abuja | Noon Joburg | 1:pm Nairobi).

For further information and to register, kindly click here

Happy Anniversary!

At its 11th Anniversary, AfICTA - Africa ICT Alliance which was founded in 2012 by 6 (six) member nations (Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Tunisia, and the Gambia) led by Dr. Jimson Olufuye, the founder, Past Chairman, and the Chair of the Advisory Council, now has membership in more than 38 African nations and the work of advocacy for Africans to reap the benefit of the digital innovation is quite on course.

The Chairman, Mr. Thabo Mashegoane in his congratulatory message appreciates all the stakeholders involved in AfICTA’s milestone of success. He says “AfICTA in its advocacy for prosperity and enabling environment for businesses in Africa has held ten (10) consecutive Summits in different member nations and from the past experiences and outcomes of the summits, AfICTA continues to close the gap that exists between all sectors that are involved in shaping the Internet and delivering the information society to the realization of digital Africa through knowledge sharing, trade facilitation, and cross-African advocacy”. In more specific terms, AfICTA Summit promotes Public-Private Partnerships by enhancing links between businesses and governments across Africa.

In 2018, the strategy to further deepen engagement and fast-track the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 was conceived, and that birthed organizing quarterly regional-focused eConferences and capacity development seminars, discussing pertinent topics to each region in Africa and working with governments and other involved stakeholders in achieving the recommendations thereof.

In the past 11 years, we’ve added our impactful voice to Internet Public Policy discussions at the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development through its Working Groups on Internet Governance Forum and Enhanced Cooperation. We have similarly been active in promoting the United Nations Internet Governance Forum and the African Internet Governance Forum. AfICTA also pioneered business engagement at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Business Constituency (BC).  We have thus accomplished partnerships with a number of international bodies of like minds and we continue to build on such relationships. Some of the partners are the AU (African Union); ICANN-BC  EU (European Union); UNECA (United Nations on Economic Commission for Africa), and ASOCIO (Asian-Oceania Computing Industry Organization)…, AfICTA has indeed been identified as the leading digital business voice on the continent.

We want to appreciate all our members, partners, and sponsors for their efforts and support geared toward fulfilling the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa.

Cheers!
AfICTA Secretariat

Enact Laws Requiring Disclosure of Cyber-Attacks, Losses in Corporate Entities, Says Olufuye

The Lead Researcher on the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), research on Cybersecurity for Development in the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), Dr. Jimson Olufuye, has urged African governments to enact laws requiring disclosure of cyber-attacks and losses in corporate entities and individuals.

While making the presentation of the outcome of the research during the 17th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Addis Ababa, Olufuye said this would help to promote transparency and accountability towards an improved effort at addressing the cybersecurity challenge.

He also recommended that mechanisms should be put in place to make it easy for victims to report such cases. Citing an example, he said that web applications could enhance the ease of reporting with free tips on preventing future attacks and recovering from losses.

Olufuye highlighted a positive relationship between cybersecurity and development in the fourth industrial revolution. The report incorporated data from National Telecoms Regulators, the World Bank Open Data Platform, and ITU Global Cybersecurity Index among others, spanning over a period of ten years.

The research findings, according to Olufuye highlighted three key recommendations including the need for a stable and accountable national and organizational governance system over a sustained period for cybersecurity to have a stronger correlation with development.

The research also recommended that laws requiring disclosure of cyber-attacks and losses in corporate entities and individuals should be enacted to promote transparency and accountability towards an improved effort at addressing the cybersecurity challenge.

Original equipment manufacturers and vendors by design, according to him should uphold the principle of security to ensure that before equipment is added to production, it should at least prompt for a change in default passcodes.

Engendered by the ECA Digital Centre, the research indicated a positive relationship between cybersecurity and development. Accordingly, the research revealed that a 10 percent increase in cybersecurity maturity yields between 0.66% and 5.4% increase in per capita GDP in Africa.

It was noted that the higher a nation’s cybersecurity maturity, the lower the cyber financial losses per capita. Data from a sample size of 40 African countries showed that a 10% rise in Internet Penetration enables between 1% and 8.2% increase in GDP per capita in Africa.

The report also indicated that Africa’s cybersecurity maturity is 29.1% compared to that of Latin America and Asia/Middle-East at 35.6% and 61% respectively.

The Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology for the Republic of Namibia welcomed the report and further collaboration effort to produce more Africa-specific data for enabling good decision-making. She added the importance of looking further into the gender dimension of the study.

Jean-Paul Adam, Director of Technology, Climate Change and Natural Resource Management Division at ECA noted the significance of this research in ‘shedding more light on cyber security as a critical foundation for Africa’s cybersecurity capacity-development agenda’.

Mactar Seck, chief of Technology and Innovation Section at ECA further indicated the significance of the study mentioning how ‘Africa’s low level of preparedness in cybersecurity is costing member states on average 10% of their GDP’.

Christ Painter, president of Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE) lauded the efforts of the ECA and stressed the need to develop more research pertinent to the region and raise cybersecurity consciousness to help mitigate cybercrime.

As part of its Cybersecurity engagement strategy, Economic Commission for Africa, ECA,  had commissioned the research to underscore cybersecurity as an imperative enabler of development in the 4IR.

See country by country dataset for the 70 countries researched @ https://cd4ir.africa